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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30025002">Hothouse Orchids</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual'>NervousAsexual</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ma and Pa Kettle (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Acceptance, good parenting, queer headcanons</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 23:14:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,127</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30025002</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tell the truth about your boy, Phoebe. Don't lie anymore.</p><hr/><p>Ma comes to some realizations about her firstborn.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Phoebe "Ma" Kettle &amp; Tom Kettle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Be The First! 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hothouse Orchids</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>Tell the truth about your boy, Phoebe. Don't lie anymore.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Of course you love him to pieces. Of course he'll always be your little boy. But it's time to face facts--he doesn't belong with you. He needs something you couldn't give him. And you can go ahead and wring your hands and think it must be some fault in you, the way he is, but what difference does it make now? What's done is done, Phoebe. You can't turn back the clock.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>You can worry yourself sick, wondering <em>did I coddle him too much</em> or <em>was I too harsh to him</em> or <em>would it have been different if he were the second and Betty my first</em>. It doesn't change a thing. He was your firstborn, of course you coddled him too much. All he had to do was look at you with those beautiful blue eyes and you'd do anything for him. Didn't you think he deserved it? Your mother told you he was an old soul, sweet and quiet and too wise for a little tyke, and he was, wasn't he? Even as a baby he had the kindest eyes.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He was your firstborn, so of course you were too harsh on him. You weren't spread thin over fifteen children so you had the time to police his behavior. You brought him up to be polite and respectful and well-behaved. Your standards were so much higher for those first few kids. You didn't find that perfect balance of rules and freedom until Elwin at the earliest.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He was your firstborn, and when he was two years old Percy put his new baby brother into his arms. He was so gentle with him, even as a toddler, and when you tried to take Benjy back he held on tighter. "My baby!" he told you. You and Percy just about died laughing.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>But the truth is that with fifteen kids you didn't have time to care for them all. It wasn't as if Percy was much help; he had other things to do, namely nothing. By the time Willie came along the kids were essentially raising themselves. Tom and Benjy and Betty were the first and they knew how to wash and change and feed a baby. You just didn't expect that it was Tom who'd actually enjoy it. It was supposed to be Betty! But she didn't take to caring for babies the way he did. She always wanted to be out with her brothers and when she didn't want to be bothered with a baby she'd sweet-talk Tom into doing her work for you. As it was happening it was funny and sweet. You'd come in from milking the cow and there'd be Tom, sitting at the table with Ruthie or Ellie or Nancy cradled in one arm while he read his books. It was Betty you were the most concerned about. She was the one not learning the things she ought to know. Tom was just too good-natured (and too much of a pushover) to refuse her anything.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Benjy and Betty were thick as thieves growing up. You never saw one without the other, and maybe that was your fault too, maybe you should have made Betty stay in and do girl things and made Tom go out to do boy things with Benjy, but you didn't think anything of it at the time. They all three got along about as well as three siblings born in a four-year period could, or better. When the neighbor kids from down the way came over and picked on Tom the way healthy, active kids pick on shy, gentle kids, Betty or Benjy but usually both would beat the stuffing out of the aggressor. Nobody picked on their brother but them!</p>
</div><div>
  <p>You thought he'd grow out of it when you thought at all. He wasn't hurting anybody. But whatever it was you did or thought, he grew into the man you know today.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He's your little hothouse flower, your little orchid who's going to wilt here. Face facts--he is nothing like the rest of the family. He'll do what has to be done, keeping the farm running, being the man of the house, but it isn't what he wants. You know what he wants. Some folks who don't know him very well call him prissy. Maybe he is. He doesn't like things that are too loud or too dirty or too busy. He wants to sit still and listen to music and talk to other people who read his fancy kind of books. If you let him go he can be with other people like him.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Doesn't he deserve that chance? Of course he does. And he'll be alright, nice boy like him. He'll do beautifully at the state college, just like he did in high school. He'll get himself a good job, maybe meet a nice girl.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>No. You can't lie anymore, Phoebe. Tell the truth. There isn't going to be a girl, and it's for the best. How many other folks suspect he's a little bit of a flit? He isn't the first one. You keep telling yourself that. There have always been eccentrics and oddballs around. But what happens to them? Even if they aren't run out of town on a rail they're always apart from everyone else. They never really belong. That's why you have to let him go.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He's not the first one, and you know better than anyone...</p>
</div><div>
  <p>When did you know? When was the first time you looked in his eyes and saw yourself looking back? He's always been different. It's just this one part of the two of you that's the same kind of different. You made it work--twenty years and fifteen children with Percy, of all people. It's twenty years you spent cussing and crying and in the end you don't regret any of it. He could make a life for himself the way you did. He might even be happy.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>That's just fine. If it comes to that, if in the end he's a little flower that can't survive out there, he can come back, because there will always be a place for him. You're still going to give him the chance you never got, because he's got what you didn't. He's got a ma that loves him exactly the way he is.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>You're going to let him go, Phoebe. Maybe you've always known that. You let him grow into the kind of man you hoped he would be--kind and responsible and sweet and smart. Now you're going to let him grow into what he wants to be.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Tell the truth about your boy, Phoebe. Whoever he becomes, you're looking forward to meeting him.</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
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